TITLE: DOES THE BIBLE HAVE A HIDDEN MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE THAT PROVES IT IS
OF SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN?

Subtitle: The Discoveries of Ivan Panin Strongly Proclaim It!

There are numerous books on the market today concerning hidden "Bible Codes"
and other mathematical phenomena, which are attracting the attention of
Christians. Unfortunately, some of these books are only thinly veiled attempts
to make money at the expense of truth. But on the other hand there is apparently
a growing body of evidence that suggests there is reason to believe the
existence of such things. One of the more popular theories now extant concerns
the ELS, or "equidistant letter spacing," codes. The premise of this "code"
involves selecting every other letter, or every third letter, etc., in a passage
of Scripture—particularly the "Torah" (the first five Books of the Old
Testament)—in the original Hebrew. Because of the extreme complexity of such an
undertaking, modern computers have been programmed to search for messages
through such letter sequences. As one might expect, some pretty wild messages
have purportedly been found along with "prophecies" relating to future events.
It is not my intent to try to promote the hidden code aspect, although I do
believe that there is ample evidence to show that there is some related fire and
it is not all smoke and mirrors!

Apologetics is the area of theology that deals with a defense of the
Christian faith. God and His Word do not need defending, but because of our
humanity we are always comforted when we find "proofs" to substantiate our
faith--a faith that probably should not engage in such trivialities, but
nevertheless it goes on. In my own experience I have found that most Christians,
in the early stages of our walk with God, go through a phase or period of
preoccupation with things apologetic. I suppose this is only natural, because it
does help us to "get a handle" on this thing we call faith. All of us would like
nothing better than to confront the atheists, agnostics, and skeptics of the
world with overwhelming and irrefutable proof that the Bible is God’s Word and
it means exactly what it says! Our flesh—our human nature—would really enjoy
popping them right between the eyes with the truth, so that they could not
possibly have a comeback. Have you ever had thoughts like these? Boy, I sure
have! But to date this has not happened and probably will not until the Lord
Himself reigns in the hearts of all men everywhere. Unbelief is so
"unbelievably" strong that irrefutable proof is merely a desirable but
unachievable goal. However, having said all of this I will now make yet another
attempt to supply Christians with apologetic ammunition and give unbelievers
something else to deny!

The first time I heard of Ivan Panin was nearly thirty years ago. Someone
gave me a tract that outlined his discovery of the "heptadic" structure of the
Scriptures (the recurrent phenomena of the number seven associated with the
texts of both the Old and New Testament), which he called "Bible Numerics." His
findings fascinated me and I began discussing the tract with some friends at
church. One of them borrowed my tract and failed to return it—which, as it
turned out, deprived me of the basic information because I was not able to find
any other sources. It was only until after I acquired a computer and searched
the internet that I found what I had been looking for all those years.

Mr. John W. Irwin of Ontario, Canada, (81 Bayview Ridge, Willowdale, Ontario,
Canada M2L 1E3) has in his possession the actual hand-written notes of Dr. Panin’s
work of a lifetime. When I contacted Mr. Irwin about this information he told
me that his dad had been a close friend of Dr. Panin and during WWII accompanied
his coffin on the train to Grafton, Massachusetts where he arranged for his
burial. He also told me (in response to my question) that even though in recent
years Dr. Panin’s work had attracted some criticism and a few attempts to disprove
it, no one—to his knowledge—had been able to do so. This just bears out the
fact that no matter how strong a case may be, there will always be those who
claim they can prove it wrong.

My sole intent with this article is to acquaint you with the findings of Mr.
Panin and not to try to add to the excellent articles already available on other
sites. If his findings are correct, and I believe they are, this apologetic
ammunition should be made known far and wide because it proves to the
regenerate mind the supernatural authorship of the Bible. Of course you will
have to make this determination for yourself, but the links that follow (coupled
with the link to Panin’s own notes given earlier) should give you plenty of
information to work with. Check them out and marvel at God’s signature on His
handiwork. May He bless you in the search.